1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a client apparatus, a computer system, a computer readable program storage medium and a display method for detecting a change of the display contents in a status bar area to display the change.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a computer system realizing Server-Based Computing (SBC), a server apparatus performs an execution process by an application program, and data management; and a client apparatus is connected to the server apparatus to utilize a service based on the process contents of the application program to be executed by the server apparatus.
The server apparatus transmits the screen data corresponding to the display contents of an execution process result of the service requested from the client apparatus to the client apparatus. The client apparatus displays the display contents based on the image data transmitted from the server apparatus on the display device of the client apparatus.
In recent years, the enhancement of the performance and the miniaturization of client apparatuses have progressed. Accompanying these trends, also the display device of each client apparatus has been miniaturized, and consequently it is sometimes impossible or difficult for the display device to display the whole area of the display contents based on the image data transmitted from a server apparatus. As concrete examples, the following cases can be given: the case where the number of pixels capable of being displayed by the display device of a client apparatus is smaller than the number of pixels of the display contents based on image data, the case where viewing the display contents is difficult because the physical size of a display device is small even if the number of pixels thereof is sufficient, and the like.
Accordingly, a method of making the display device of a client apparatus display a part (hereinafter referred to as a “display area”) of the display contents based on image data has been devised. In this case, a user of the client apparatus selects a part of the display contents of the image data as the display area. Hereby, it becomes possible for the user to sufficiently ascertain a part of the display contents based on screen data of a server apparatus which part the user wants to ascertain even if the display device is smaller than the display contents based on the image data.
However, there is the case where the display contents of image data cannot be ascertained sufficiently by the method of making the display device of a client apparatus display only a display area.
For example, a part of the display contents based on the image data which part has not been selected by the user (hereinafter the part will be referred to as a “non-display status area”) cannot be ascertained from the display contents of the display device of the client apparatus. Consequently, even if a change which is desirable to be ascertained by the user has taken place in the display contents in a non-display status area, the user cannot ascertain the change.
In particular, it sometimes becomes a problem that a change of a status bar produced at the time of the connection of a server apparatus to an external network (such as the Internet) cannot be ascertained by a client apparatus. The reason is that, in the case where the state of the status bar cannot be ascertained, a user cannot know at which time of a time before the establishment of communication of a process accompanied by a network connection, a time in the communication and a time after the completion of the communication the contents are displayed on the display device of the client apparatus, and the user cannot perform the judgment of the timing when the user can ascertain the display contents as a process result of a requested server. Then, the status bar is generally situated at the lower part of a display screen or a window, and is frequently greatly out of a display position of the contents where the ascertainment of the process contents of a service can be performed. Consequently, it is very difficult to include both of the contents capable of performing the ascertainment of the process contents of a service, and a status bar in a display area.